respected, their women would be saved from violation, and that their lives would be spared.

"Vain hopes! The people of those devoted villages have suffered every evil which a cruel enemy could inflict. Their property has been plundered, their houses and furniture burnt, their women have been ravished, and the unfortunate inhabitants whose age or sex did not tempt the brutal violence of the soldiers, have fallen the victims of the imprudent confidence they reposed in promises which were made only to be violated."*

Again, in a despatch to the Earl of Liverpool, dated 14th March, 1811, he says:-"I am concerned to be obliged to add to this account, that their (the French) conduct throughout this retreat has been marked by a barbarity seldom equalled, and never surpassed. This is the mode in which the promises have been performed, and the assurances have been fulfilled, which were held out in the proclamation of the French commander-in-chief, in which he told the inhabitants of Portugal that he was not come to make war upon them, but with a powerful army of 110,000 men to drive the English into the sea."†

Of similar treatment experienced by the Spaniards

* Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, p. 375, No. 426.

† Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, p. 449, No. 507.

at the same hands, the same authentic documents contain abundant evidence.

But this is only one side of the picture. Such are the dreadful effects of war, that, although the English commander exerted himself strenuously and unceasingly to repress and punish all excesses in his soldiers, the unfortunate inhabitants sometimes suffered the like evils from those who came to defend, as from those who came to attack them. On this point the Duke of Wellington says, in the memorandum on the proposed plan for altering the discipline of the army, dated 22nd April, 1829-" Let us only refer to our orderly books in the Peninsula. Let us remember the horrors committed by small detachments on their marches to join the army, notwithstanding the anxious care taken to prevent them."*

And if further and more minute evidence be

required, it may be found in many of the memoirs written by officers and soldiers engaged in that war. Perhaps those may be particularly referred to which contain the relation (confirmed by the general order of the Duke of Wellington, dated Badajoz, 8th April, 1812) of the atrocities committed by the British soldiers, after the storm of Badajoz, on the Spanish inhabitants, whom they had come to protect.

* Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, p. 919, No. 1013.

And are all these, then, heroes? One would think not, with the permission of the hero-worshippers. Truly does the Duke of Wellington, who ought to know something of the matter, say-" Believe me, that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero."*

66

The

There is a remarkable parallel between an expression of the Duke of Wellington, in a letter to the Earl of Liverpool, dated "Sta. Marinha, 23rd March, 1811," and the sentiment (though no one would accuse the illustrious Duke of being in the ordinary sense of the term a man of sentiment") put by Homer into the mouth of Hector. Duke says: "I shall be sorry if Government should think themselves under the necessity of withdrawing from this country, on account of the expense of the contest. From what I have seen of the objects of the French Government and the sacrifices they make to accomplish them, I have no doubt that if the British army were for any reason to withdraw from the Peninsula, and the French Government were relieved from the pressure of military operations on the Continent, they would incur all risks to land an army in his Majesty's dominions. Then indeed would commence an expensive contest; then would his Majesty's subjects discover what are the miseries of war, of which, by the blessing of God,

* Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, p. 887, No. 986.

they have hitherto had no knowledge; and the cultivation, the beauty, and prosperity of the country, and the virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would be destroyed, whatever might be the result of the military operations. God forbid that I should be a witness, much less an actor in the scene."*

Hector, after alluding to the miseries to be inflicted by the Greeks on Troy when it falls, adds :— Αλλά · με τεθνειῶτα χυτὴ κατὰ γαῖα καλύπτοι, Πρίν γ' ἔτι σῆς τε βοῆς σου θ' ἑλκηθμοῖο πυθέσθαι.

*Gurwood's Selections from the Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, No. 515, p. 457. And in his memorable letter to Sir John Burgoyne in 1847, the Duke says, "I am bordering on seventyseven years, passed in honour. I hope that the Almighty may protect me from being the witness of the tragedy which I cannot persuade my contemporaries to take measures to avert."

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CHAPTER VII.

THE NORMANS.

WHEN the world was some fifteen hundred years older since the Latian shepherds founded their city, which was to become in time the imperial city, there arose in another part of Europe a race of men animated at first with the same passion for conquest which marked the Romans. The march of these men too, like that of the Romans, was always onward, and they met with no obstacles which they did not finally overcome. But, as elements both of humanity and wisdom unknown to the Romans have entered into their policy, it may be concluded that, though their beginning somewhat resembled the beginning of the shepherds who founded the city of the Seven Hills, their end, which is not yet-and which I hope may be far distant-will not be like

theirs.

At a time when the ancient civilization, such as it was, might be said to have reached its highest point— the point from which it began rapidly to declineHorace extolled the courage, which appeared to him